


Maybe I Need You

by thesuninside



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Liberties with Vulcan society, M/M, Pining Spock (Star Trek), Post-Star Trek: Into Darkness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:55:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23602687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesuninside/pseuds/thesuninside
Summary: Nyota asked Spock: What would you have done if the glass weren't there?Or, 7k words about Spock's feelings.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Spock, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 341





	Maybe I Need You

**Author's Note:**

> Lines are from various Richard Silken poems, with most being from “Saying your names.”

Maybe I need you

The way that big moon

Needs that open sea

Maybe I didn’t even

Know I was here

Until I saw you

Holding me.

\--Andrea Gibson

1.

Jim was in a coma. “They’re tricky,” McCoy told Spock. Spock, in his Earth-based gray uniform, hat tucked neatly under his arm, looking down at the still body of his best friend. McCoy’s medically sterile tunic was pale blue, the same as the sheets of Kirk’s bed, and McCoy’s bright blue eyes were tired. “Comas. The odds are he’ll wake up, our scans tell me that much. But when? Who knows. That’s up to Jimbo.”

“That nickname is so foul as to nearly be pejorative,” Spock told him, not even conscious of the barb. His eyes were fixed.

McCoy rolled his eyes, bending down to be in Spock’s line of sight to roll them again when Spock missed them the first time. “He can hear you,” McCoy told him. “His brain isn’t really forming memories, but he can hear you. His ears work. You could try reading to him. Free up a nurse for a while.”

“If it would be of help,” Spock told him. Spock sat that day and read aloud from a book McCoy had provided, _A Tale of Two Cities_ , which Spock had read as an adolescent and not cared for, save the final lines. He returned each day that week, at the end of his duties on campus—assisting with refurbishment plans and scoring final assessments for this year’s graduating cadets—to continue reading it to him. Kirk did not respond, but the cerebral monitors indicated that he did, indeed, hear.

Spock found himself unable to evenly give voice to the final line, but his own sense of completion would not allow it to go unread. No one would hear the slight tremolo at least. “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”

Spock closed the book, the fine texture of the paper catching on the pads of his sensitive fingers. He looked with a placid face and enormous internal emotional upswelling at the still body of Jim Kirk. “I dislike this book,” he told Jim. “I should like to read something else. I will research and procure something considered uplifting.”

His plan to research was unnecessary. He told McCoy about completing the book. That was when McCoy showed him a small stack—more books, genuine things of paper and board, black ink pressed into the pages, yellowing, smelling of their own slow decay. McCoy told him, “You know how Jim likes his antiques. These were on the shelf by his bed. He always kept things to read by the bed when we were rooming together.”

Spock sat by Jim’s bedside alone and looked at the volumes, weighed them in his hands. His sensitive hands. _I know how to break bones_ , he thought, wishing Khan could have appreciated his error for longer. Spock pressed his emotions back into a neat little box, tidy with a lid, and opened the book on top of the stack on his knees. “Scheherazade,” Spock read, voice low and even and unperturbed. “Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake.” He read on, the words tripping out of his mouth before he had the chance to digest them, the ending of the poem striking completely different emotions than the end of the Dickens. “These, our bodies, possessed by light. Tell me we’ll never get used to it.”

Shuddering, Spock closed the book. He looked at Jim’s hand, still and pale against the bedsheets, but whole, the blue veins visible along the fragile frame of his phalanges, under the veneer of his skin. He did not think. He did not plan. He pressed his own hand to the sheet, pressed his two longest fingers across the top of Jim’s. A kiss, brief and stolen. He sensed no emotion from Jim, not direct, anyway; it was the mind-noise of a dreamer.

Spock withdrew his fingers, lifted them before his eyes, then curled them slowly into his palm.

He put Silken aside. Hefted instead Langston Hughes. Heavier topics, easier for Spock to carry right now.

2.

“I don’t think this is working,” Nyota announced inexplicably. Spock’s spoon paused en route to his mouth. The soup was handmade, not replicated, and though Spock appreciated the ease of replicating meals on long space journeys, he was cognizant of the physical satisfaction of eating food prepared by hand. In this case, by Senora La Palma of Mariscos, on a pier overlooking the Bay. One kilometer, nineteen meters, and seventeen centimeters away, and up nineteen stories, was the door to Jim Kirk’s hospital room. He was awake, after three months, two days, and an unknown number of hours and minutes. 

Spock had not admitted the lost time to anyone.

“The spoon is functioning appropriately,” Spock replied, having eliminated other possibilities. He took the soup in his mouth and savored the salt and sweet, the savory, the vegetarian broth that warmed his internal temperature temporarily, but pleasantly. 

The look she gave him was alarming in its sincerity and intensity and its . . . pity. Spock placed his spoon in the bowl.   
  
“I saw you,” she said. She had eaten only a few bites of the avocado-based salad before her, and had idly ripped the tortilla into centimeter-wide strips. She was preoccupied.

“I do not know what you are referring to,” Spock replied.

“You didn’t know I was there. But I saw your hands.”

Spock’s perfect and precise posture eased. He met Nyota’s eyes. She looked away first. Spock offered, “I am sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she told him. “I mean—it’s. It is, and it isn’t. I care about you so much and I thought—I really thought you were giving me all you had to give. And I was okay with that. But it’s clear you weren’t.”

“I did not intend to keep anything from you, Nyota,” Spock told her, truthfully. “In truth—I do not know—” He stopped. He looked away from the hang of her dark hair, from the most graceful angle of her shoulders (approximately twenty-one degrees), to the calm, cold water of the Bay. “There is much I do not understand.”

“Intention is not a synonym for reality,” she said, “I deserve somebody who’ll look at me the way you look at James Kirk.”

3.

As their relationship was not broadcast, their separation was not, either. They had never shared quarters, either on Earth or the _Enterprise_. It simply meant that Spock had more time for other pursuits. Nyota left for a visit with her family, taking personal leave. Spock wondered whether she would choose to return when _Enterprise_ was underway again. He hoped she would. He hoped his emotional shortcomings would not compromise her career. He had told her so, and she had laughed, and he did not know how to interpret that.

Spock made himself available to Star Fleet and spent more time with Kirk, when Kirk was not already entertaining visitors. Sulu and his husband frequently visited, as did Scotty and Chekov. McCoy, of course, was present. If Nyota visited, she did not tell Spock. 

“I can tell how emotional you are from here,” Sybok told him over one of their infrequent coms. Sybok was currently living on Mars, in a commune of some sort. His facial hair had grown to a ludicrous volume, and Spock told him so. “Yeah, that’s not deflecting me. How are you, really? How pissed off is Dad?”

“Our father experiences no emotion,” Spock told him. It was not just a bit of semantic sleight-of-hand in Sarek’s case, as it was with most Vulcans. Of course Vulcans experienced emotions. It was just that they governed them as completely as possible. Like any discipline, and any species, some Vulcans were more adept at the governance than others. There were Vulcans whose logic was very poor, whose emotional self-management was unsatisfactory. But for the most dedicated, there was the purging of all emotion, the psionic cauterization of the amygdala and similar brain structures which eliminated even the ability for the brain to generate emotion. Their father had elected to pursue this discipline. He had completed kolinahr. 

And then there was Sybok, who not only embraced his emotions and their outward expression, but _reveled_ in them. “Barbaric,” Sybok said with a grimace that twisted his features and made sickles of his eyes. “At least we’re not neutered, brother mine.”

“You are deliberately being crude,” Spock told him. “Is this an attempt to elicit an emotional response?”

Sybok laughed. “All I need to do for that, Spock, is mention one name. Am I right?”

“I will not listen to illogical nonsense. I contacted you to inquire as to your wellbeing. I am leaving for deep space when the _Enterprise_ is refitted and our captain recovers.”

“I know, it’s a hell of an adventure. If anybody is going to do a lot of good out there, and learn an incredible amount, it’s you.” The warmth of Sybok’s affection leeched through their bond. Their bond as brothers had been severed when Sybok was banished at eighteen. It had been like a death. Since then, another bond, weaker, one of friendship, had formed in its place. It was like listening to him through water instead of through a clear comm line. Spock felt his own emotions gentle in response. 

“It is customary to visit family before embarking on a long journey,” Spock said. 

“I’d love to see you, too,” Sybok told him. “Just tell me when. Will your captain be there? I want to meet him.”

“Jim will be where he pleases,” Spock said.

“ _Jim_ , huh?” 

“We are friends.”

Sybok’s pause was prolonged and delighted. “Spock. That’s great.”

“I will forward you the time and date of my pre-mission leave,” Spock replied, bulldozing through the emotions that made him feel like he was seven years old again. 

“I can’t wait to see you,” Sybok answered. The comm ended after farewells, and the exchange of ta’al. Spock returned to the mat in his room on which he meditated, and folded himself easily into the posture. 

The Richard Silken book lay nearby. Spock looked at it a long, long moment, this stolen volume, like the stolen kiss. Three kilometers and ninety-eight meters away, Jim Kirk was possibly awake, possibly dozing in his own bed in his own apartment, perhaps wondering where his antique book had gone.

Spock opened the book. _“—I stretched my arms across him, rivers of blood, the dark woods, singing with all my skin and bone,_ Please keep him safe. Let him lay his head on my chest and we will be like sailors, swimming in the sound of it, dashed to pieces. _Makes a cathedral, him pressing against me, his lips at my neck, and yes, I do believe his mouth is heaven—”_ Here, Spock had to pause, had to press his own fingers to his lips, his breath quickening-- “ _—is heaven, his kisses falling over me like stars.”_

No reason for the ragged breath that dropped out of his mouth. He closed the book one-handed, put it aside. Closed his eyes and his fists against the incompetence of his heart, and sought the discipline of Surak.

4.

“Did you draw the lunch stick?” Jim asked him. He was seated in a chair in his sunny living room, soaking in the warmth of the unseasonable autumn sunlight as though he were a reptile and not a human. Spock briefly contemplated Jim Kirk’s metabolism and the rate of photosynthesis that would be required to maintain it if he were neither reptile nor mammal. It kept his mind busy while his hands were engaged in the essentially mindless process of preparing a nutritious lunch.

“Elaborate?”

“You’ve made lunch for me every day except one for the whole week I’ve been home. Just seems like there were ‘time to sit with Jimmy’ straws and you drew lunch.”

“I simply volunteered. As my obligations for Star Fleet are more fluid than the others, and I am not on leave, this is a convenient time.” Like that was all. Like watching Jim eat food Spock had prepared wasn’t a delight in itself. “The meals I have prepared for you are optimized for nutrition, and though I lack the skill of a trained chef, the food is no doubt healthier than what you might order in.”

“Right,” Jim said. His color was better, but his face still seemed pale and bruised. Spock stirred the noodles with his chopsticks, ensuring an even distribution of protein cubes, vegetables, and spices. He put a portion in a bowl, sure to include a generous amount of the nutrient-rich broth, then deftly placed a sliced egg on top. This, he placed on a table that would stretch across Jim’s lap. He was recovering, but sitting up for too long, or walking too much, exhausted him. “Are you going to eat?”

“I prepared a meal for myself, yes,” Spock answered. 

“Then bring it in here.” Jim eschewed chopsticks now, finding it easier to eat the food with a spoon and fork with his current level of mental and physical energy. Spock seated himself in a nearby chair to eat as well. After a few minutes, Jim said, “I owe you.”

Spock had been awaiting, and dreading, this. “You do not.”

“I’m literally alive because you went—above and beyond.”

“As you did, with the volcano.”

They sat in the quiet together, and Spock very carefully angled his personal shields so that Jim’s emotions did not influence him unduly. “You were with me,” Jim said finally. “At the end.”

“You are correct in the timeline but not in the label. It was not, in fact, your end.”

Jim—Jim smiled, and it was slow, and warm, and Silken’s words slipped through Spock’s mind: _Imagine a room, a sudden glow. Here is my hand, my heart, my throat._

5.

Chess followed soon after. Of course it did. Jim lacked the stamina to concentrate for long periods of time, so the game was left in situ on its table, and Jim dozed in his sunny chair, covered with blankets against a chill that was slow to leave his bones. Spock meditated on the floor or scored exams on his PADD while Jim dozed. He did not leave while Jim slept. He did not want Jim to wake alone.

As the second week of Jim’s waking recovery ended and the third began, his energy levels increased by a percentage Spock lacked sufficient data to calculate. He could calculate that Jim was awake at minimum 43% more while Spock was there. Jim was able to finish his meals entirely 83% of the time, though he still napped, post meal, 100% of days. The naps themselves were 67% shorter. All of this was progress.

Jim walked laps around his apartment, moving up and down stairs. Neuropathy, McCoy had told Spock. It was reversing but still present, and the more Jim moved around, the more rapid would be his recovery. McCoy was still actively treating him, now with conventional medicines. Still, humans were typically well into their second century of life before they needed neuropathy treatments. At the beginning, Jim touched the wall for balance, his pale feet treading carefully on the wooden floor. As his strength grew, and his confidence, and his nerves rebuilt themselves, he walked with his hands at his sides. And then, one day, he walked with small balls of some viscous, yet contiguous substance in his hands, squeezing and releasing his fingers repeatedly, pressing individual fingers into the . . . substance in sequence.

“It’s therapy putty,” Jim told him. “I told Bones my grip strength seemed weaker.” He waved a ball of the stuff in the air, then crossed the room and offered it to Spock on an open palm.

Spock put his PADD aside, and, hesitantly, took the pile of putty from his hand. He was not sure whether to be horrified or calmed by its texture and malleability. It was warm from Jim’s hand. Jim stood before Spock, idly working the other ball of putty in his other hand, then tossing it back and forth easily. “Feels weird, doesn’t it?” Jim said.

“I am determining the proper adjective even now,” Spock admitted, hesitating, and probably sounding confused.

Jim laughed and eased himself to sit on what Spock understood to be a footstool. Such furniture was unknown among Vulcan. Vulcans did not, as a rule, lounge. A reclining Vulcan was asleep, meditating, or unwell. It put Jim in close proximity to Spock, who looked between Jim and the putty, then decided to look at the putty. It was blue and possessed a shimmering quality. The putty was safer. There was something fascinating about smoothing it, then compressing it, between his fingers. 

“When I was a kid,” Jim said, “My teachers always gave me stuff like this to fidget with. So I could sit still long enough to do my work.” He tapped the side of his head with one finger. “I tested out, you know, of the regular curriculum. So then the teachers put me in college courses and stuff like that. Until I was thirteen, anyway.”

“What happened when you were thirteen?”

“I drove a car off a cliff and got sent to a colony as punishment.” Jim looked out the window, and there was something frail in the smile he offered Spock afterward. “I bet you were a model student.”

“As the son of Sarek, I had no choice save excelling,” Spock admitted. The putty squeezed most satisfactorily in his palm, oozing from between his fingers. “Academically. Musically.”  
  
“I’m not surprised,” Jim told him. He was watching Spock’s hand, too. 

“I got into fights,” Spock blurted.

Jim blinked twice in surprise. “No shit?”

“’No shit,’” Spock agreed, clearly only echoing Jim’s language. “My classmates were ruthless in demeaning me and my mother. My emotional control was still developing. And thus.”

“I bet you kicked ass.”

“While there was some kicking, a blow to the buttocks is hardly a useful maneuver, save to unbalance an opponent. Ninety-six percent of the time, I struck them in the face.”

“You punched them in the _face_. Hell yeah.” He rubbed at his own nose, where Spock had struck him when they fought on the bridge, after Vulcan’s destruction. “With your hands, though. Must’ve hurt.”

“Yes,” Spock admitted. “In ancient times, Vulcans often killed one another with their hands.”

Jim contemplated this. “That’s pretty hardcore for a race of touch-telepaths.”

“We were barbaric.”

“Well. I’m not sure we’ve encountered a civilization yet that didn’t consider its past barbaric.”

“Indeed. Vulcan and Earth are unique in their form of barbarism—so far.”  
  
“The only two civilizations we know about that nuked themselves,” Jim said with a wry smile. “It’s not all bad, though. Bones told me you read to me, while I was out.”

Spock perceived this as a sudden change in topic. He was keenly aware of the Silken, stolen, secreted, on his meditation mat at home. “His report was accurate.”  
  
“Thanks for that,” Jim said. He dangled his hands between his knees, squeezing the ball of putty between his two palms. “I don’t remember what you read, but I remember a voice, your voice. It was comforting. I was having—pretty bad dreams. But your voice helped.”

“I am gratified to have been of assistance,” Spock told him, profoundly grateful as well that Jim was not looking at him, did not see some emotion or secret in Spock’s all-too-human eyes. Jim smiled a bit, eyes still on the floor.

Jim stood and moved to his chair then. He turned on a vid, and Spock rose. He handed Jim the therapy putty. Jim smiled, took it, and held it between his hands. Spock captured the moment in his mind: the moment Jim’s fingers slid perfectly into the indentations left by Spock’s, like lips pressing over the marks made by other lips. 

6.

ShiKahr was in many ways an illustration of Vulcan’s history. The Old Quarter in the center of the city predated the Reformation. Surak had walked those streets before he led the way into the future, the only way. Extending outward from this district, the lines of the city became straighter, more deliberate, guided by mathematical and engineering principles and not the whims of the inhabitants. The great protective walls surrounded the entire city, and in the hills outside, the houses of important families honeycombed the red stone.

Spock’s family home had looked over the Forge, and the winds that rose there had blown hot and merciless across the patios and climate-controlled glass, battering their domicile before moving on and being quelled by the energy-producing walls of the city. 

ShiKahr was gone now, of course, and that fit with Vulcan’s history as well. 

The art gallery in which Spock stood, glass of something sweet-smelling and bubbling in hand, had been designed to suggest ShiKahr, the lines of the walls and windows suggestive of the old architectural styles which, though they became more orderly and built out of more substantial materials post-Reformation, newer buildings had also honored. There was the subtle sound of wind and the smell of heated sand; the temperature was at the upper range of comfort for humans. The images—sculptures and multimedia and the occasional nostalgic painting—all represented ShiKahr. _Thirty-six Views of ShiKahr_ was the name of the exhibit.

Spock was not here by choice. He was Star Fleet’s Vulcan, and he was following orders.

He sipped his drink, contemplating the balance of color in the painting before him so as not to engage in an overly detailed analysis of—

Of any of it.

His critiques were not wanted, and he knew it. He was here to be seen in photographs and vids in the press. _Maybe don’t dress in uniform_ , the missive had read originally, and when he asked for a clarification, he was told, _Wear civilian clothing, Commander Spock_.

Thus.

He stood in black. There was a bit of a shine to it, as was currently fashionable. His hair was very tidy. Under the sleeve of his tunic, a silver band encircled his wrist, and the metal, body-warm, was a comforting distraction. He did not care to hear the others in the gallery discussing this artistic display of ShiKahr. For them, it was a distraction, separated from the ghost of the city. Spock was viewing the remains of his home.

He recognized the street in this painting. If he chose to, he could recall the scent of babaya cooking in the vendor’s cart, just out of frame; see the steam from bitter tea as it was poured into small bowls of raw honey and herbs; hear the sounds of Vulcan, Terran, and other languages. ShiKahr had been home to just over fifty million, and not all of them Vulcan. 

Spock took another sip and turned away, this time to examine a geometrical sculpture, a circular mosaic supposed to represent the city in gradients of color. He spent several calming moments considering the rate of tonal change in the colors.

“Gorgeous, isn’t it?” a human male said from thirty-nine degrees to his left. Spock turned to regard him. He was four inches taller than Spock, and his dark brown hair was twisted into locks and gathered together behind his occipital bone. “Hi,” the man said. He did not offer his hand to shake, but his smile was genuine and Spock could sense, even from the socially polite distance between them, that the man was meaning to be courteous and polite. Spock appreciated both efforts. He also found Spock attractive. This was something Spock had sensed before, though it usually vanished over the course of conversation. “I’m Seth.”

“I am Spock,” Spock replied.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Seth told him, and his smile was very bright. “I like this piece, too. I prefer the abstraction to the realism, in this subject matter.”

“I believe the artist met their goal with it,” Spock replied. “Your comment implies a familiarity with ShiKahr.”

“I was fortunate enough to visit a few times,” Seth told him. “I trained in artifact preservation, and attended some professional institutes there.”

“Then your appreciation for this event surely exceeds my own,” Spock told him, meaning to sound self-deprecating but instead sounding dismissive. He internally sighed. Seth just smiled a little, sympathetic.

“I grew up in Nairobi. I don’t know what I’d do if Nairobi wasn’t there, and I was at an art event memorializing it. I’d be distressed, I’m sure.”

“I do not experience distress,” Spock immediately replied.

“Of course not,” Seth smoothly answered. “But I don’t think you can pretend Vulcans don’t experience emotions. Not after Khan.”

The tension which had come and gone all night—very well, come and gone for _months_ —lodged into his spine, took up residence across the left side of his skull, and drew his temper as sharp as his eyebrows. “As you are a civilian, your understanding of the events is necessarily limited.”

“Well, yes,” Seth conceded. “But everyone’s seen the Supercut.”

Spock blinked, but otherwise held Seth’s gaze. “I beg your pardon?”

“You—haven’t? Oh.” Seth’s face made a peculiar series of expressions, much too rapid for Spock to parse in the moment. Finally, he said, “I could show you, if you liked. It’s a video about your—chase.”

“A video. About me chasing. Khan.” Through the streets of San Francisco. It suddenly made a horrid sense. He had not seen it, but of course the streets had been full of civilians, each with a personal device; and there were, of course, security cameras everywhere. Someone must have edited them to create something worthy of the title _Supercut_. This was—most unfortunate and explained much of his father’s flat disapproval since the event. His emotions had been highly dysregulated. His viciousness had been nakedly on display. Spock looked away from Seth’s broad, handsome face, and into his drink. He raised the glass and emptied it in one swallow. Seth had been flirting with him, and Spock found himself in need—no, in _want_ —of a distraction. He was unattached. Nyota was still on leave and Jim was . . . his own.

“I have no desire to see this . . Supercut,” Spock told him. “However, should you wish to escort me to your residence for a more intimate engagement, I would have no objection.”

Seth looked startled, then laughed. “I hadn’t gotten to that part yet.”

“It was unnecessary. Your skin is flushed and your eyes have strayed to my mouth at a rate of three times per minute,” Spock said, placing his glass on a nearby, floating tray. “I await your invitation.”

Seth issued it, and Spock left the gallery with him. Spock had enough of the dead for one night. He walked with Seth to Seth’s vehicle, which guided itself along the public transit rails to their destination. Seth attempted a conversation during the trip, but Spock silenced him by leaning over the central console and kissing his mouth. This activity was pleasing and stimulating, and Spock continued it with Seth’s enthusiastic participation for the remaining seven minutes and nine seconds it took the vehicle to park outside Seth’s building. Then, Spock broke away, panting and his heartrate had increased by a percentage he _could_ calculate, but did not wish to. 

“Holy shit,” Seth said, satisfactorily breathless. “I’m on the fourth floor.”

Only then did Spock look at the building. His heart thumped, twice, in his side. He pressed a hand over it to quell the rebellious organ. “Oh,” he found himself saying, stupidly. “You live in Mission Tower.”

“Is—that a problem?” Seth asked, sounding confused, and Spock resisted the urge to thump his forehead against the glass. 

“Affirmative,” Spock told him. Then, maddened by his own illogic, he corrected it to, “Negative. I—know someone who resides in this building.”

Understanding wafted like a scent from Seth’s side of the vehicle. “An ex?” he asked.

“No. We have never been romantically involved.”

“Oh. _Oh_.” This time, the understanding had a sour note. Seth sat back against his seat, and Spock looked at him. “I’m not sure how to proceed here.”

“It need not interfere,” Spock told him. 

Except it— _he_ , Jim Kirk—had. Even as Spock said it, he looked up, towards the ninth floor, which was where Kirk lived. Spock had eaten a meal with him only hours ago. Only hours ago, their chess game had finally ended with Spock’s decisive victory and Jim’s careless laughter. Only hours ago, Jim had walked him to the door and told him to “have fun” at the art exhibition.

Spock sighed, actually sighed aloud, and looked at Seth. “I must apologize. I seem to be—no longer in the mood.”

“I could tell,” Seth told him. He did not seem angry, per se. “Look, if it’s bad enough to make a Vulcan sigh? Maybe you should tell him.”

Spock’s hand, on the button which would open the door, paused. “His friendship is important to me.”

“Is he the kind of guy who can be friends with somebody who loves him?”

Spock considered Jim’s open and easy friendship with everyone he met. How he didn’t hold grudges, not even against the men who had beat him so severely when they were cadets and he an intoxicated civilian. “Cupcake” was a security officer on the _Enterprise_ whose loyalty to Jim Kirk was supreme. “He loves desperately,” Spock replied. 

“Oh my god,” Seth said, his eyes widening. “It’s Jim Kirk. He lives in my building.”

Spock looked at him. He did not know what expression was on his face, but it was enough to make Seth raise both hands, to hurriedly protest, “Look, it’s none of my business. I picked you up because I think you’re hot. I am not emotionally invested in this. But pining isn’t a good look on anybody. You should tell him. Don’t waste your time, you know? We only have so much.”

“Thank you for the company,” Spock said, not committing to any course of action or commenting on the fact of mortality and romantic engagement. “In other circumstances, I am certain our liaison would have been satisfactory to both of us.”

“You’re welcome?” Seth sighed again. “Good luck.”

Spock exited the vehicle, and walked back to his own apartment. The evening was cold enough to ground himself in his body. Meditation served to ground his emotions. He put the Silken on a table, out of reach of his meditation mat, yet his meditation was only 13% more effective.

The distraction wasn’t the book, after all.

7.

Spock could remember the empathic floods of emotion when his mother and brother were near. As a baby and very small boy, his mother had held him and rocked him to sleep, her hand cupping his shoulder and thigh, holding him close. Her emotions rang like bells through his mind, comforting. His first sense of belonging was how he felt in her arms, her love swaddling him more efficiently than any blanket. Then, Sybok would take a turn, sitting a young Spock in his lap to play the lyre or work puzzles or read, and Sybok’s love was different, protective and warm and joyful. His mother’s love had been full of wonder and devotion, also protective, but so enormous that Spock could not fathom its depth.

Nyota had told him that she thought Spock was giving him all he had to give. But this was her ignorance as a psi-null individual. Spock had felt the possible depth of love. He knew that as much as he admired and cared for Nyota, no matter how beautiful he found her mind or how glittering her intellect, he did not love her as deeply as love could go. She did not shatter his reason.

He had believed he had found the best chance for himself. He could have been content with Nyota.

Nyota deserved someone who was more than content with her. Spock understood.

Spock worked diligently to be a moral and ethical being. He spent days drafting a letter of sincere apology to Nyota, shouldering the blame for their failed relationship, and assuring her that though he did not love her, his regard for her was entirely sincere. He acknowledged that he had hurt her, and expressed his remorse and desire to make amends in whatever way she deemed appropriate. He expressed how much he valued her friendship, and his genuine hope that they could be friends. “You made me a better person,” he told her in the letter. “And you have always deserved more than I could give you.”

He signed it, “In hope, Spock.”

For the three days he waited for her reply, he ate lunch with Jim, played chess with Jim, and, after convincing as Jim was still on medical leave, showed Jim some of the more interesting specifications for _Enterprise’s_ refit. He arrived at his apartment after sitting as scorer in oral exams to find a personal communication from Nyota. 

_Spock,_

_Thank you for your letter. I know how much it must have cost you to write it. I’m not angry with you. I know you never lied to me when you said you loved me. I’ll be okay eventually. I shouldn’t have made such assumptions about your emotional capabilities, either. I do bear some blame in this. I loved the idea of what we could have been._

_I’m always going to be your friend. That is not in question._

_As your friend, I want you to think about this, really think about it. Why did it hurt you so much when Jim died? When you couldn’t touch him? It’s because he was gone from you. He was taken away. Well, there’s no glass between you now. The only barriers are the ones you put there. Jim can’t reach for you—he’s your captain. You have to be the one to extend your hand. Literally and metaphorically. Don’t stand in your own way. What would you have done, if the glass had been removed?_

_I welcome your words any time you care to send them._

_Love, your friend, Nyota_

Nyota’s words washed over him like a baptism. He allowed himself to slump backwards in his chair, still wearing his uniform, the gray collar tight on his throat. He sighed with a tremble to his breath. 

Spock closed his eyes. Nyota’s last question circled in his mind. _What would you have done, if the glass had been removed?_

First answer: died of radiation poisoning. She likely wanted him to consider that radiation was not a danger.

Second answer: sought immediate medical attention for Jim.

_Very well, Spock. Suppose you have summoned Dr. McCoy. What do you do now? The turbolifts were damaged. It would take McCoy at least five minutes to traverse the wreckage._

And so Spock . . . imagined. He imagined the glass door opening, and Spock on his knees, pulling Jim into his arms. He imagined Jim’s gasping, failing breath. Jim’s failing eyesight as his burned corneas deteriorated at a steady rate. Spock would already be emotionally compromised. He would have already admitted to it. His controls, failing one by one, falling to pieces even as Jim’s body decayed in his arms. “I want you to know why I couldn’t let you die,” Kirk said, then behind glass, and now, in Spock’s imaginings, held in Spock’s arms.

“Because you are my friend,” Spock said, and his emotions spilled forth, his human eyes leaking in an entirely un-Vulcan expression of grief, fear, a sorrow he could not contain. 

Jim’s hand reached up.

And in Spock’s mind, the glass was not there. Spock took his hand.

Spock opened his eyes. 

The glass was not there.

8.

Even in these matters, Spock observed the courtesy to which he had been raised. He requested whether Jim wanted company on Saturday. He inquired as to what Jim should like to eat. Jim requested they take a walk by the Bay before retiring to Jim’s apartment, and Spock agreed, and met Jim there with a personal vehicle. He had not seen Seth since the night he had left him at the sidewalk, for which Spock was profoundly grateful.

Jim slid into the passenger seat. They were both in civilian clothing, Spock dressed for the cold wind that would come off the Bay, and Jim in a sweater, jeans, sunglasses. He looked over at Spock, the sunglasses reflecting Spock’s own face back at him. “You look cute in a hat,” Jim told him.

Spock felt himself flush green and he was unable to prevent it. Jim grinned, looked back out the front of the vehicle, and Spock pulled out into traffic. He preferred to guide the vehicle himself rather than rely on the transit rails. He parked the vehicle at the entrance to the walking trails that surrounded the Bay, and as they descended the short ramp to the paved path, he said, “Alert me if balance issues arise or if you experience discomfort.”

“I will, I will,” Jim said. “God, it feels good to be outside.”

“The external air is invigorating,” Spock agreed. This set a grin on Jim’s face for some reason, and they walked for a time in silence together. The black cap on Spock’s head covered the points of his ears and the tips of his eyebrows, and this coincidental effect gave him a nearly human appearance. Green blood rushed to the surface of his skin as the cold permeated his epidermis, which somewhat spoiled the effect. Beside him, Jim turned pink-cheeked. His blond hair, somewhat longer than regulation, became swept up in the wind and Spock quelled the desire to straighten it for him. He held his hands instead in the pockets of his coat, which was black and sleek.

They walked until Jim called for a break, at which point they sat together on one of the artificially warmed benches overlooking the choppy water of the Bay. The bridge was nearly repaired, open now to pedestrian traffic on one side. Its repair had not been a priority as much as the repairs in downtown San Francisco. Identifying the remains of the dead had occupied much time, labor, and materiel.

Jim’s expression was somber, and Spock carefully lifted his psionic shields, lightened them just enough to check his friend’s mood. “You seem troubled,” he said, finally, after parsing through the shifting grains of Jim’s emotional state.

“Deep thoughts. Existential crises will do that.” 

“You are experiencing an existential crisis?”

“I am literally still in the process of recovering from a very painful death which—I only partially remember. Thanks, decaying brain.”

Oh. The thought struck Spock like a bolt from the sky. He had never considered that it would be possible that Jim _would not remember_ the events, the reaction Spock was unable to contain. He blinked rapidly in the cold, stinging wind. “I was unaware you did not recall the event,” he said.

“I remember you there,” Jim said. “And I remember you cried.”

Spock inhaled sharply. There it was. He felt vulnerable, despite his coat like armor, only his face exposed, the rest of his skin tucked carefully under layers of fabric. 

“I saw the Supercut,” Jim continued; Spock had not seen it and had no desire to do so. He knew what happened during his pursuit of Khan. He did not need to relive it. Spock knew he was not oblivious to Spock’s responses. It was only that Jim had decided to press forward. “I saw how you chased Khan down and beat him and broke his bones. Because he killed me.”

“Your assessment is correct,” Spock told him, hoping that Jim could not hear the effort it took Spock to keep his voice even. “I chased him because he had taken you from me. I beat him with my hands and I felt his pain. I felt his fear and disbelief when he knew I had finally overpowered him. I would have strangled him and felt his life fade into nothing, if Nyota had not stopped me.”

“That’s pretty bloodthirsty, Spock,” Jim said, but neither sounded nor felt as though he disapproved.

“I wanted him to experience as much pain as I could inflict, knowing that no amount of it would suffice for what he had done.”

“Jesus, Spock.” Jim’s own voice was rough. 

“We should return to your apartment,” Spock told him. He stood.

“I want to finish this conversation,” Jim said, looking up at Spock.

“As do I,” Spock told him. “But I do not wish to do so in the cold.” 

Without saying anything else, he removed his hand from his pocket, and extended it to Jim. The glass was not there. Jim looked Spock in the eye, “I know what that means for a Vulcan,” Jim said. 

Spock’s hand held steady. “I am offering you all that I can give you,” he said to Jim, the man who had found the gaps in every piece of armor Spock had ever surrounded himself with, the man who met his intellect and his need to excel and challenged him, constantly _Do better, be better_. The man in whose name Spock had given up even logic. 

Jim took his hand.


End file.
